Cultivating Immortality from the Book of Life and Death

Chapter 252 One Person, One Sign-Off. (First Update!)

The wind blows the clouds apart, revealing a crescent-shaped moon.

The moonlight casts a shimmering glow on the water. By the pond, rocks are piled up like beasts, wisteria vines are lush, and flowers bloom like brocade.

Mu Jia stood under the wisteria trellis, dappled moonlight bathing him, revealing a faint, bewildered look in his eyes.

Looking at the unfamiliar scene around him, Mu Jia shook his head, and after a while, he gradually came to his senses.

They encountered the Wanshan Temple!

He is currently inside the Wanshan Temple!

only……

What part of Wanshan Temple is this?
He remembered that he had just been assigned to a simple and filthy guest room, but the other three people in the room all said that he was possessed by a demon and told him to go find Senior Lu.

Then he went out the door...

After that, no matter how hard he racked his brains, the memory seemed to have never existed; he couldn't recall it at all, as if it had suddenly appeared under the wisteria trellis.

"How is this going?"

"No! We have to go find Senior Lu right away!"

"Huh? What is this?"

Just then, Mu Jia suddenly realized that she seemed to have something in her hand.

He raised his hand and saw an old bamboo skewer, which had somehow ended up between his fingers.

On the bamboo stick, a line of small characters, like silver hooks and iron strokes, reads: "Wanting to cross the Yellow River, the ice blocks the river; about to climb Mount Taihang, the snow covers the mountain."

The moment Mu Jia saw the divination slip, he felt a sudden chill run down his spine, instinctively sensing that something big was about to happen.

The clear water, the unfamiliar surroundings, and the quiet night all seemed shrouded in an indescribable gloom at this moment.

The lake rocks not far away seemed ready to come alive at any moment, ready to devour anyone who might approach them.

Feeling a sudden surge of fear, Mu Jia took a deep breath. He dared not linger there, but not knowing where he was, he could only choose a direction at random and run away.

However, he had only run a few steps when he felt completely exhausted. His limbs felt weak and he couldn't muster any strength. Even maintaining a standing posture was extremely difficult.

Mu Jia was puzzled. He subconsciously turned his head and immediately saw a familiar figure standing behind him.

That was none other than a monk with a dignified appearance, wearing an indigo robe embroidered with interlocking pearls and floral patterns, a mutton-fat jade pendant hanging from his waist.

This is him!
As Mu Jia gazed at that incredibly familiar face, he felt a chill creep up his spine like a centipede, and he instinctively looked down at his body.

He saw a blood-soaked skeleton, with colorful internal organs wrapped around its ribs, and the whole thing exuded a strong, sweet, and pungent smell.

In the stillness of the night, the sound of dripping blood could be heard intermittently.

This……

His flesh and bones were separated!
What remained in place were his robes, skin, and flesh!
Before Mu Jia could react further, the internal organs encircling his ribs seemed to lose some kind of support, and with a "whoosh," they instantly spilled out of his bones, flowing all over the ground.

Blood flowed freely among the floral tiles, filling the courtyard with a foul stench.

At the same time, the figure behind Mu Jia also lost its strength in an instant and fell to the ground silently.

Thick, sticky blood quickly accumulated under the flower stand. In the moonlight, its color was a shimmering, inky black, like a bold, heavy stroke of ink.

Mu Jia couldn't even let out a scream as his life force rapidly dissipated.

His skeleton fell into the pool of blood, as if it had fallen into a bottomless swamp, sinking rapidly. Soon, the night wind blew across the pond, the wisteria vines swayed, and the rocks were jagged. The place was restored to its former tranquility, the bricks and stones swept clean, the blood, entrails, bones... all as if they had never been there.

※※※

Side courtyard.

Seven carriages, laden with taxes, stood in a row. The corpse puppets in front of them were expressionless and motionless, like statues.

Four cultivators, dressed in different styles, stood guard around the carriage, each with their hands on their weapons, each positioned in a different direction. Their expressions were blank, their pupils slightly unfocused, as if they were almost unconscious.

Suddenly, each of them had an old bamboo stick in their hand.

These four cultivators were clearly bewitched and out of their minds. After glancing at the bamboo sticks in their hands, one of them, a tall cultivator with bushy hair and beard, immediately reached out and grabbed his head with both hands, pulling hard!

puff!
With a muffled thud, blood splattered everywhere. This cultivator had actually managed to pull his own head off his neck. His blood, along with fragments of his internal organs, sprayed out like fireworks, instantly staining the surroundings red.

Immediately afterwards, the headless corpse slowly fell to the ground.

A female cultivator in green standing to his left drew her long sword with a clang, reversed the blade, and decisively plunged it into her own head.

Puff puff……

The muffled thuds of sharp blades piercing flesh echoed continuously. The green-clad female cultivator moved with lightning speed, and in the blink of an eye, she had riddled her own head with holes.

Amidst splattering blood, he too collapsed, lifeless.

The remaining two cultivators, one of them chuckled, and before the laughter had subsided, he stretched out his hands, grabbed the upper and lower jaws of his mouth, and suddenly exerted force, tearing his own head in two; the other, with his ten fingers like claws, plunged into his abdomen, tearing out his internal organs with a clattering sound, and throwing them into the air.

In the blink of an eye, the corpses of four cultivators lay sprawled on the ground, their blood gushing like a stream, quickly flooding the open space next to the carriage.

But soon, all the corpses sank into the ground, as if swallowed up by the land, disappearing without a trace.

In a short while, the side courtyard returned to its quiet state, with no trace of the killings remaining.

※※※

Similar situations occurred throughout Wanshan Temple.

All the monks not in their guest rooms received the worst possible fortune slips...

※※※

In the dilapidated palace, Zheng Que frowned as he looked at the Book of Life and Death before him.

At this moment, records are constantly appearing on the Book of Life and Death.

“...Mu Jia…”

“…Sun Zhengyi…”

"...Zhang Xingmei..."

Looking at these suddenly appearing records, Zheng Que quickly calculated in his mind that there were a total of twenty-seven cultivators who entered Wanshan Temple this time, including Chen Zhentao, the successor of Xuanyuan Pavilion.

In that short moment, nearly ten records had appeared in the Book of Life and Death!
He quickly glanced through the records and, upon confirming that Lu Maohong was not among them, breathed a sigh of relief.

Besides Lu Maohong, there are also Zhang Guitu, Yu Zhongyin, Linghu Yuniang, Wei Yingjuan... whose records were not included in the Book of Life and Death.

Looking at the newly added names, Zheng Que's expression turned solemn. All of these people had died at the same time!
This suggests that something very unusual may have happened at the Wanshan Temple.

As he was pondering rapidly, he noticed that the black aura between his brows had become very thin. Soon, the last wisp of black aura disappeared into the Book of Life and Death, and the surrounding scenery changed. He was back in his guest room.

(End of this chapter)